So they parted. What had passed between Catharine and Mrs. Cardew when they lingered behind at the Rectory gate, God and they only know, but what we call an accident prevented their meeting. Accident! my friend Reuben told me the other day his marriage was an accident. The more I think about accidents, the less do I believe in them. By chance he had an invitation to go to Shott Woods one afternoon, and there he saw the girl who afterwards became his wife and the mother of children with a certain stamp upon them. They in turn will have other children, all of them moulded after a fashion which would have been different if his wife had been another woman. Nay, _these_ children would not have existed if this particular marriage had not taken place. Thus the whole course of history is altered, because of that little note and a casual encounter. But, putting aside the theory of a God who ordains results absolutely inevitable, although to us it seems as if they might have been different, it may be observed that the attraction which drew Reuben to his dear Camilla was not quite fortuitous. What decided her to go? It was perfect autumn weather; it was just the time of year she most loved; there would be no crowding or confusion, for many people had gone away to the seaside, and so she was delighted at the thought of the picnic. What decided him to go? The very same reasons. They had both been to Shott during the season, and he had talked and laughed there with some delightful creatures before she crossed his path and held him for ever. Why had he waited? Why had she waited? We have discarded Providence as our forefathers believed in it; but nevertheless there is a providence without the big P, if we choose so to spell it, and yet surely deserving it as much as the Providence of theology, a non-theological Providence which watches over us and leads us. It appears as instinct prompting us to do this and not to do that, to decide this way or that way when we have no consciously rational ground for decision, to cleave to this person and shun the other, almost before knowing anything of either: it has been recognised in all ages under various forms as Demon, Fate, or presiding Genius. But still further. Suppose they both went to Shott Woods idly; suppose--which was not the case--they had never heard of one another before, is it not possible that they were brought together by a law as unevadable as gravity? There would be nothing more miraculous in such attraction than there is in that thread which the minutest atom of gas in the Orion nebula extends across billions of miles to the minutest atom of dust on the road under my window. However, be all this as it may, it would be wrong to say that the meeting between Catharine and Mr. Cardew was prevented by accident. She loitered: she went up Fosbrooke Street: if she had gone straight to Mr. Cardew she might have been with him before Tom met him. Tom would not have interrupted them, for he